In July, I spoke at an event organised by Islington Labour Party women’s forum, called ‘Keeping women and girls safe in Islington’. There were various speakers from community organisations, the council and the police, plus workshops on domestic abuse, sexual harassment, hate crime, gangs and bullying. My job was to speak about harassment and violence against women on public transport.

Activists from the Independent Workers’ union of Great Britain (IWGB), United Voices of the World (UVW), UCU, Unite, RMT, Bectu, and other unions and workers’ organisations came together for the “How To Win At Work” conference on Saturday 18 August, hosted by the left-wing think tank New Economics Foundation.

Ryanair pilots in Ireland, Sweden and Belgium will strike for 24-hours on Friday 10 August.

The strike is part of an ongoing dispute as pilots are demanding a fair and transparent approach to transfers between different bases. On 25 July Ryanair escalated the dispute by threatening to sack 100 pilots and 200 cabin crew, or transfer them to Poland.

In 1997, shortly before winning the general election, Tony Blair boasted in an interview with the Daily Mail (26 March 1997) that Britain “would still have the most restrictive union laws in the Western world” with Labour in power.

That remained true until Labour lost office in 2010, but since then the law have become more restrictive.

The restrictions around ballots, picketing, solidarity action, political funds, and others, means the potential of our unions is shackled. Employers have taken advantage of that.

Cleaners working for Southern and Southeastern railways will be balloted by the RMT in two separate disputes over pay and working conditions.
The cleaners are employed by two different cleaning contractors — Wettons on Southeastern and Churchill on Southern.
The ballot closes on 21 September.

The RMT action on Northern and Merseyrail against Driver Only Operation on 13th March was very successful.

At Merseyrail, ALL Traincrew stayed out, including ALL Drivers, despite the majority of them belonging to ASLEF, which has not yet joined the dispute. The ONLY trains that moved at Merseyrail on the day were operated by managers.

That is a huge step forward in this dispute in terms of solidarity- let's hope this spreads to other depots as the dispute rolls on!

Construction workers scored a big win against contractors operating on the Crossrail transport project in central London, after a sacked worker was reinstated within hours of a demo at Crossrail's Oxford Street site.

The worker, who began work on Monday 9 February, raised concerns over safety standards on the site. Despite being told he would have work for three years, he was summarily sacked on Friday 13 February.